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Helga Nowotny

Helga Nowotny, one of the leading European voices in Science Studies, is President of the European Research Council and Chair, Scientific Advisory Board, University of Vienna.

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Titles by This Author

Naked Genes

Reinventing the Human in the Molecular Age
By Helga Nowotny and Giuseppe Testa

The molecular life sciences are making visible what was once invisible. Yet the more we learn about our own biology, the less we are able to fit this knowledge into an integrated whole. Life is divided into new sub-units and reassembled into new forms: from genes to clones, from embryonic stages to the building-blocks of synthetic biology.

Insatiable Curiosity

Innovation in a Fragile Future
By Helga Nowotny

Curiosity is the main driving force behind scientific activity. Scientific curiosity, insatiable in its explorations, does not know what it will find, or where it will lead. Science needs autonomy to cultivate this kind of untrammeled curiosity; innovation, however, responds to the needs and desires of society. Innovation, argues influential European science studies scholar Helga Nowotny, tames the passion of science, harnessing it to produce "deliverables." Science brings uncertainties; innovation successfully copes with them.